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Gen Z Canadians are exhibiting similar attitudes toward life insurance as other generations, typically purchasing it around the same time as they reach important life milestones. But advisors who work with these young adults — many of whom are now in their 20s — say they often need more education on the benefits and features of life insurance, and the messages that resonate with them are notably different than advisors may be accustomed to.

Alysha Tse, a certified financial planner and wealth advisor with Chernick James and Associates Wealth Counsel at Richardson Wealth in Vancouver, works with Gen Z clients as part of a multi-generational family practice. She said when young clients show up in her office to talk about life insurance, it’s typically tied to major events such as the recent purchase of their first home, the birth of their first child or the death of a family member.

However, she said that the “old assumptions we used to make about when someone should consider life insurance don’t necessarily apply” to younger clients. Gen Z and Millennial Canadians are often delaying having children and buying homes due to the high cost of living, or forgoing them altogether.

During webinars, Tse said she doesn’t connect the purchase to life milestones and instead highlights the benefits of purchasing it young while premiums are lowest, and that certain policies have cash values that can be used during their lifetime.

“What does resonate is more practical advice that matches their current realities and aligns with their values,” she said.

Zainab Williams, a certified financial planner and founder of Elleverity Wealth Management in Milton, Ont., said that when working with Gen Z clients she talks about how life insurance can help them build their financial foundation, pointing to the ability to leverage the cash value of a whole life policy as collateral for a loan in the future, for example.

She said the younger clients she works with crave education and holistic financial planning, rather than a product-sale approach. Her client base is typically made up of Millennials, Gen X and baby boomers, but she said she’s started to speak to the Gen Z children of clients as well.

“They want to understand, ‘how exactly does this strategy fit into my overall financial well-being?’” she said.

Williams said she’s found that the selling points that older generations connected with, about preventing a worst-case scenario, legacy planning and protecting generational wealth, don’t resonate with younger clients.

“They came up in an environment of a lot of uncertainty. … The message that ‘if you do not act this is the negative repercussion’ doesn’t work, because they’re already financially stressed,” she said. “When I speak to Gen Z clients, the way I frame things is, ‘think about this as a love letter to the people you care about. If your parents co-signed on a loan, or on your house, a life insurance policy helps them if you’re no longer there.’”

Gen Z clients often “stress” about working with financial institutions, Williams said, so they typically do some research before they reach out to an advisor.

But they’re often getting their financial information from unconventional sources, said Jason Reynold Goveas, senior insurance advisor with online insurance brokerage PolicyAdvisor in Toronto. He said most of his clients are between ages 30 and 50, but about 30% are under 30.

“They’re not reading the Financial Times — they’re watching TikTok, they’re watching YouTube shorts,” he said, noting that the information they’re hearing from social media can sometimes be inaccurate, or not applicable to their specific situation. “The main thing these creators want is attention.”

Williams built her own “analyzer” tool after numerous younger clients told her about the finance videos they’d watched on TikTok. The tool is designed to help her clients evaluate the accuracy of financial influencers’ videos.

After they input the video’s link, the tool will break down its central message. It lists the influencer’s biases, such as overpromoting a strategy without discussing its risks or favouring one company’s investment products over others. And it offers alternate strategies for them to consider.

The tool is powered by AI and is available to clients through her FundEvolve fintech platform, which is targeted at women and provides budgeting, investing and debt-reduction guidance.

“Because we’re in a space where Get Z [has] all this access to information at their fingertips, they’re more prone to research everything before they come to you for your opinion,” Williams said. “And because there’s a lot of trust in financial influencers, as the advisor you have to be cognizant to how you speak about the misinformation they might get from influencers.”

Goveas stressed the importance of speaking to Gen Z clients with empathy, recalling being on calls in the past with senior advisors before who “talked down” to younger clients.

“What they want is to be heard, they want to see that you understood what they’re saying and you’re trying to find a solution that works for them,” he said.